


No Power AU:  Rally Saturday

by babylonsheep



Category: Worm - Wildbow
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 13:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11852277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylonsheep/pseuds/babylonsheep
Summary: Week Two of the Cauldron Discord's writing challenge.  Theme:  No Power AU.This one features unpowered Squealer and Armsmaster having a meet-cute moment.  Features original artwork.





	No Power AU:  Rally Saturday

Brockton Bay was famous for its warm climate.  It was enjoyed by the hordes of tourists who flocked to the beaches every summer, and appreciated by the local government whose annual operating budget depended on tourist spending.  
  
To the two-wheeled community who exposed themselves to conditions at forty-miles-per-hour that the cagers in their soft, upholstered four-wheeled boxes never knew existed, Brockton Bay's weather elevated the morning commute from a daily chore to a daily pleasure.  Brockton's summer made it even better.  And the best of the best were the Saturdays in summer, because there was no pressing urgency to get from Point A to Point B, only a desire to soak in as much of the beautiful weather as possible. The ride on Saturdays was for enjoying the view, taking the scenic road from Brockton Bay down south for fifty miles, then back up again in a big loop that put an endless blue strip of ocean a hundred yards away at all times.    
  
Weekend motorcycle rallies.  A loud, blaring nuisance to the tourists who didn't hear the music in whirring pistons and revving engines.  Well, fuck them.  Sherrel marked them in her calendar with a big red circle with a smiley face planted in the center.  She looked forward to them, to joining her voice in a growling symphony of two-wheeled cruisers and racers and zippy roadsters and hearing the music they made together, a harmony that she could feel rumbling down through her bones.  
  
She looked forward to them because she knew he would be there.  
  
He didn't know her name.  She didn't know his.  She'd never spoken to him, only made eye contact a few times.  But she knew his bike.  She recognized it out of the nearly hundred-strong pack that took to the road every summer Saturday.  His bike was beautiful, from the custom paintjob in midnight blue with silver trim on the sleek, aerodynamic fairings, to the silver arrow-shaped windshield on the front.  She could see that it had been built for him; it was _him,_ his soul built in metal, encasing a mechanical heart that ran on fire and gasoline.  
  
She saw him that Saturday, standing a little way off from the crowd of beard-and-bandana men and idling engines.  She'd noticed that he didn't join in the conversations about bikes and road conditions and insurance premiums that made up the routine pre-ride talk.  She'd noticed that he wore full gear, head-to-toe crash protection, where few other people had anything more than a helmet and boots.  
  
Sherrel toed her kickstand down and made up her mind.    
  
_Today is the day,_ she thought, giving one final glance to her own bike, her own mechanical soul in eye-searing cherry red.    
  
She was suddenly aware that she hadn't prepared anything to say to the man in front of her.  He had a beard like most of the other men there, but it was short and well-maintained, trimmed into a neat triangular shape.  He was tall, had good posture for someone who hunched over a sloshing tank for hours at a time, and a soul that shone so brightly that she couldn't look away.  
  
"Hey," she said.  "I like your bike."  
  
He looked at her.  She looked at him.  He looked at her bike.  She looked at the ground.  
  
"I like yours," he answered.  "I think I've seen it before.  And heard it."  
  
"I'm known for being the loud one," said Sherrel.  "I'm Sherrel, by the way."  
  
"Colin."  He offered his hand to shake.  
  
She took his gloved hand and smiled.  Saturday had even more to look forward to.

 

 

 

 


End file.
